


Too Long Til I Drown In Your Hands

by actualtrashking



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Navel-Gazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 00:55:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4808762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualtrashking/pseuds/actualtrashking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything is coming to a head and Laura has a choice to make, finally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Long Til I Drown In Your Hands

It's in the middle of their confrontation with Carmilla, after she's strung out on the God blood coursing through her veins, that it all hits Laura.

_Worst timing ever._

But that's what happens when you compartmentalize your feelings. They come spilling out of you in the worst moments possible. Laura thought she had things figured out in that department--sure, her heart fluttered when Danny’s eyes lingered on her, even now, but Laura wasn’t allowed to _feel_ that.

She never let herself look too hard at the emotions Danny’s mere existence dredged up because they were _too much_ and Carmilla was _right there_.

Carmilla was there, cracking Laura’s chest open with force in her hands, and a raspy voice with so many sweet nothings falling from between her lips that Laura forgot for a second that they were sweet _nothings_ \--there was no substance to the words, and Laura worried in her worst moments that maybe the same could be said for Carmilla herself.

And Laura is so _tired_ \--tired of blaming herself and feeling the weight of other people’s choices on her shoulders--she is not Atlas, she should not have to shoulder their burdens. She wants to finally make a choice of her own that she can actually revel in for more than two seconds before this literal hellhole of a campus snatches it away from her.

She wants to finally choose for herself.

But her choices were made for her. Carmilla snatched up all of Laura's choices and then got mad at Laura when Laura couldn’t choose--the options weren’t even in her hands anymore. Somehow Carmilla wrapped herself around Laura’s choices as if to covet them as something more than what they were, or maybe just exactly what they actually were. Carmilla has had Laura’s pulse between her teeth more than once, and this feels just the same.

Carmilla burned them both to the ground and then threw the charred match from her hand, blaming Laura for the ashes in her own mouth.

But Laura realizes that it's Danny by her side now, brandishing a sword she knows how to swing with an ease Laura will have to remember to ask her about later.

_Later_.

Laura hopes with everything in her that they make it to later.

But for now Danny is by her side, fighting for more than just their own pulses. She’s fighting for the greater good, and Laura is reminded that there is still such a thing. There is still a greater good to strive for even if all of the lines lately have been so very blurry underneath her feet.

She doesn’t know what she’s doing anymore, but she knows she’s going to give herself the time to figure it out even if she has to rip that time from cold, dead fingers. She just hopes it doesn’t come to that. She hopes they can get out of this relatively unscathed, but they’re already sporting so many scars.

Danny is Laura's constant, and it's while staring at Carmilla with God blood smeared across her face that Laura's stomach flips. She finally realizes that she never wanted Carmilla. Laura wanted who Carmilla _could have been_ in another life. Laura wanted all the potential Carmilla carried in her bones. But Carmilla was never what she could have been--Carmilla never wanted to be everything her existence could promise the world.

It’s not as if Laura can exactly blame her, though--tethered to a life that will never let her go, Carmilla didn’t even get so much as a choice in the matter. Which makes the fact that she’s tearing Laura’s choices from her hands and blaming her for not acting quick enough all the  more infuriating. Carmilla knows how this feels; knows probably better than anyone what it feels like to have people go on about caring for you, only to decide that your breathing isn’t good enough if it doesn’t carry the actions they had written out in their heads for you with it. Carmilla knows what it’s like to feel like you are destruction poured into a body, and yet she has manipulated every facet to give Laura that same experience all while calling her a selfish, callow _child_.

And now Laura knows what it feels like to want to burn every surface her fingers touch, because maybe then she could burn away the feel of Carmilla’s touch that lingers on her skin--give herself skin that hasn’t been marred, for once.

And then there’s Danny. Someone so brave, strong, and all kinds of righteous. Danny is everything Laura could have found herself wanting, and it was never an act--that’s just who Danny is as a person. Strip her down to her bare bones and Danny will burn the world apart with her ideals and build the world back up from its ashes in a better image--the one that swims behind her impossibly blue eyes.

The fact that it has taken so long for Laura to actually see and accept this only fuels the fires of Laura’s own penchant for self-deprecation.

"Laura!"

Danny's yelling her name, and suddenly Laura is jostled out of her thoughts and pressed so close to Danny she can feel the rapid beat of Danny’s heart--Laura has missed that slice of normalcy more than she ever knew possible.

She was too caught up in her own thoughts to notice the chair Carmilla had thrown at her head. The middle of a fight possibly to their deaths is not the place to be contemplating the lifeless vacuum of her love life, Laura knows as much, but she can’t help herself. She has spent so much time avoiding thinking about it, reigning in her actions, _controlling herself_ , that it has become too much.

The urge to pull Danny down for a kiss is too great to ignore, so Laura gives in. It's sloppy, and messy, and more teeth and desperation than anything else, and it's over far too quickly, but Laura still knows that this choice, this one she gave herself was the best thing she could have done.

Except for maybe the _timing_.

Carmilla's vicious snarls serve as the backdrop to Laura and Danny's inevitable coming together in something _tangible_.

It's almost fitting, really.

"We make it out of this alive, Hollis and you owe me more of that."

"Then stay alive, Lawrence."  Laura calls back to her.

They do. Thank god, they do.

Bruised and broken, but their hearts are still racing in their chests and that is more than enough.

"You owe me." Danny breathes against Laura's lips before kissing her hard, finally able to take their time with something that should have been handled with care in the first place.

“Anything and everything.” Laura mutters into Danny’s mouth.

Carmilla might have stolen all of her choices, but Laura created new ones Carmilla could never get her hands on. Laura chose even after Carmilla took her options away and removed herself from the equation.

Laura never wanted to sacrifice herself for Carmilla’s well-being. That was never something Laura even had to contemplate because it was never something Carmilla had ever come close to deserving. No one would deserve that; not Carmilla, not Danny, not Laura--absolutely no one on this earth deserves someone making an action like that in their direction, or worse, for their sake.

So Laura didn’t.

The bigger sacrifice she made was letting Carmilla make her own choices even when she didn’t come out the other side of them. Watching Carmilla spiral all while blaming herself for Carmilla’s actions was grand gesture enough, as far as Laura was concerned.

There was nothing to be done.

Carmilla made her choices and finally, Laura got to make her own.

  
  



End file.
